Keep your cd's in good condition.
Written: Feb 28 '04
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Pros: Cool looks. Cheaper than a CDchanger. CD-RW compatible.
Cons: Awkward to insert front panel. ID3 tag scrolls once only. Display colour / brightness.
The Bottom Line: Using an MP3 CD player means 1. original CD's aren't lost/damaged/stolen 2. You can change compilations 3. You can play downloaded music 4. No autochanger taking up trunk space.
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| readk's Full Review: Sony CDX-MP40 Car CD/ MP3 Player |
OK. So my wife is sick of her in dash cassette player and is jealous of my CD playing ability. Or at least that was the case. Now I'm sick of carrying a folder full of CD's nevermind changing discs every half hour when the album inevitably gets to the filler.
CHOICES
With a long journey to visit friends coming up we decided that we needed hours of uninterrupted playback of our favourite songs. I'd already decided to start backing up my favourite albums on CD-R and make a couple of compilations. The obvious choice seemed an in dash Tuner/Cassette controlling a CDchanger. Looking around my local Halfords (big UK auto parts chainstore ) I noticed that there is a massive choice of in car entertainment. At the moment there is CD, CDchanger, Digital Tuner, Hard-disk MP3 and CD-MP3 not to mention DVD, PlayStation and all the other junk to keep the kids happy in the back. So perhaps CDchangers aren't my number one option?!
What do I want from my in car audio? Quality? Ease of use? Ability to play a variety of music? All of the above please!
INSTALLATION
There's not a lot I can say. The guy in the store fitted it along with a dash adapter (the original cassette player was double the size of a regular player). It took him only a couple of minutes and we were up and running. So a 30 minute ride home saw us flick through 180 tracks and tune in our favourite radio stations. Stopping off for gas on the way we found that after turning the ignition on all our radio stations settings were lost! After referring to the excellent trouble shooting section of the manual it would appear that the power cables were not correctly connected. Returning to the store I showed the guy the diagram and he had indeed made an error. This was simply fixed and had luckily not caused any damage to the car's electrics or the player itself. This time I chose to read the quick guide in the manual before setting off for home.
BUILD
The fascia is quite cluttered and the electric blue and red display is unlikely to fit in with the rest of the dash but the buttons responde well and the open/close fascia with the CD slot behind is a neat touch. Unfortunatley the fascia is a nightmare to attach. This is the only downside though as the build is solid and after frequent use there is a knack to inserting the fascia.
SOUND
This depends on the source material. I was dissappointed with FM Radio but CD has a good warm sound. The DSO soundfield button and 'Loud' settings can drastically change the units sound providing your speakers can keep up. The 3 DSO settings especially give an array of options. It would appear to filter high and low frequencies to accomodate different speaker positions and so the sound can appear to come from different heights and positions depending on the setting. I was happy with the sound from MP3 but low bit rates suffer awfully with most car's treble FM happy speakers. Stick to 128kbps as a minimum and you can't go far wrong.
FEATURES
It's got everything you need. The DSO as already mentioned is neat and all the simple things like balance / fade / Bass / Treble can be adjusted easily. Tuning stations is a breeze and being able to randomise playlists is great when potentially you listen to the same CD's regularly. The feature I like least is the scrolling song name. It scrolls once and then sticks at the first 15 characters or so. If your mp3's are poorly tagged then you can get some nonsense on the screen. The best feature is the 'att' button. It's like mute but it reduces the volume by a fixed percent and then fades it back up to where it was when switched off. This is great for passengers when they want to talk through your favourite song!
All in all a good piece of gadgetry which has made long journeys easier on the ears.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300.00
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Epinions.com ID:
readk
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Member: Kevin Read
Location: Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, England
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
A big guy from a small country re-visiting epinions
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